What does it mean if my calls are marked as spam or private?

If you have received reports from your customers that your phone numbers are showing up as spam or private when you call them, there are a few steps we can take to correct this.

All phone numbers come from a pool of numbers provided by either traditional telcos on their physical network, or VoIP carriers. The number of phone numbers in both of these pools is limited so often numbers get re-used. Once a number goes out of service, it goes through a quarantine period where the number is held from new customers until the phone number is no longer receiving incoming calls (along with other criteria). Issues can arise if the number was previously flagged as spam, or used by another business for a long period.

If your calls are showing up as private:

Settings on your customer's phone

This setting is available on Android phones. If you have a specific customer that mentions this to you, you can refer them to a help guide to change this setting.

Verified caller ID

If you have several different customers reporting this to you, reach out to our support team and we can verify your phone numbers for caller ID.

No change?

If the above steps don't help, we will log a support ticket on your behalf with our carrier to investigate. Please note that we will need examples of three different calls in the last 24 hours. These should be in the following format:

  • From
  • To
  • Date/time

If your calls are showing up as Potential Spam on Samsung/Android phones:

A company called Hiya maintains a database of phone numbers that have previously been reported as spam for Samsung and some other Android phones. They also hold other information such as business names that will be displayed on the Android phone.

If your calls are showing up as Potential Spam on your customer's Android phones, you can request Hiya update this information by using the form here.

If you're making a large number of outgoing calls:

If you are using Cradle to make a large number of outgoing calls where the receiver of those calls may not be expecting the call, they may report your number as spam.

If this happens, reach out to our support team. We'll have a chat with you about how you're using Cradle and possibly replace the numbers with fresh numbers at our discretion.

If you have phone numbers in the US/Canada:

There is a feature we can provide for your phone numbers called CNAM (Calling Name Presentation) which displays the name of your business to the people that you're calling. This comes at no extra cost and comes with the added benefit of a higher calling attestation which may improve your pickup rate.

If you require this feature, get in touch with our support team and provide the following information:

  • Business name to be displayed (can't be more than 15 characters)
  • EIN (Employer Identification Number)
  • Key contact at your company
    • First and last name
    • Email address
    • Phone number
    • Title
  • Business type (LLC, etc)
  • Industry type

You can also register your business and its phone numbers with the Free Caller Registry here.

The Free Caller Registry enables entities making legitimate outbound phone calls to submit their data to the three major providers of call management services supporting the major US wireless carriers once via a standard, centralized experience.